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The S&T Credit was a bank specializing in loans and insurance during Dragonhollow's Second and |Third Eras. =History= ---- Early Operation Life in Dragonhollow was notoriously harsh and cruel, particularly for those living a solitary existence. One ill-advised choice could have far-reaching consequences; a single death at the wrong time had the potential to set someone back weeks and leave them nearly destitute. Smitten noticed how vulnerable newcomers were and saw in their plight a golden opportunity. After discussing his ideas with Tox, they decided to go into business together. S&T Credit was founded on 2E:66. They provided insurance on any item for a negotiable rate in gold over a fixed term; if the client stopped paying or died before the term was reached, they would owe the remainder upfront before their payout. The insured item would be replicated perfectly, including color, enchant, and lore information. Business was generally slow, as the sort of impetuous and reckless clientele that made up their customer base were the least likely to think they needed S&T's services until it was too late. Confidential client data was stored in the vault below Nutville. Market Expansion The bank eventually expanded to offer low-interest loans to those recently arriving in Swampwater by airship, though they usually required a respectable sponsor to co-sign. In special circumstances, they also offered loans to those hit by sudden catastrophe by means of a simple I.O.U. S&T insured clients that owned vaults at their primary rival, the Bank of Pi. This insurance, paid in iron, guaranteed replacement of items in the vault lost due to either the incompetence of themselves and/or Pi. After Ozven discovered how to clone the supposedly unique keys used to access Pi's vaults, S&T refused to insure new clients. They were occasionally seen as being predatory and at one point Matto outright suggested they were exploiting hapless individuals like Haywire for their own gain. They also had to deal with occasional fraud, such as when Derey tried to perpetrate insurance fraud by "stealing" his own treasure from a vault he owned at the Bank of Pi, then filing a false claim against the loss. Late payments were dealt with through a combination of interest charges and frozen payouts. Delinquent accounts and fraud were handled more harshly, with contracts placed on the Bounty Board in Swampwater and farmed out to well-known mercenaries such as Ozven and Wiz. Tox Takes Over After Smitten's departure from Dragonhollow following the Dragonslayers' surprise attack on The Coast, Tox became the sole proprietor though he retained the bank's original name out of respect for his former partner. He moved the bank's records vault to an undisclosed bunker hidden deep beneath the Northlands. Preferring more lucrative forms of risk management, Tox shifted direction and made changes to the bank's offerings. The bank began getting involved in the real estate market. S&T would seize properties whose claim deeds had expired, dropping the magical protections offered by golden shovels, and then sell them to other interested buyers, sometimes their original owners. They also offered a deed program, where the bank would claim a property that a client could otherwise not afford and then lease it back to them indefinitely while retaining ownership. In some cases, this served as a mortgage, where clients gradually bought back their rental property and would eventually be given full ownership over the deed. Tox acquired something of a reputation as a slumlord for these actions, as he had back in Lakeview Village during his time living in The Slums. Mining Spawners During the Third Era, acquiring mob spawners the traditional way required the use of explosives. Citizens were first required to purchase Elite at the cost of sixteen gold ingots and thirty levels of XP, then take a gamble by detonating TNT in the hopes of harvesting the spawner against a much larger chance of simply destroying it completely. The high risk, combined with the materials required to manufacture TNT, made many leery of trying at all. As an alternative, a vendor at Northham Hall sold the Spawner Miner for a thousand tokens. The golden pickaxe was of especially weak durability, meaning that they only had a limited number of uses before they broke completely. Because they were irreparable, they quickly became high-value luxury items and most purchases came from factions that shared them across all of their members. Their cost deterred even wealthy veterans and was prohibitively expensive for newcomers. However, S&T Credit possessed several unique Spawner Miners that had been manufactured very early on by Eris. Grandfathered in, these special pickaxes could be repaired indefinitely, making them worth far more than their mere weight in gold. S&T began loaning these pickaxes out to trusted individuals in the community. Because the pickaxes never had to be replaced, the program essentially had zero cost outside of the initial purchase and equaled pure profit. This side business formed the majority of the bank's revenue and was by far their most popular offering. Even otherwise rich individuals like Zerg, Ozven, and Zen borrowed pickaxes. Claim Bankruptcy When Acey introduced a Claim Bankruptcy program through Northham Bank on 3E:60, S&T quickly took advantage of it as a way to help the disadvantaged get back on their feet. For those deep in debt to Grim for repeatedly dying and choosing to release their soul from the Underworld quicker by paying in claimblocks, Eris offered citizens the opportunity to discharge their debt so that they could claim property again. The process required payment in the form of all sixteen music discs. Using a creeper farm design invented by Smitten, S&T would immediately provide a full set of music discs to secure the bankruptcy through Northham Bank in exchange for negotiable interest to be paid over a period of time, backed by some form of collateral in case the borrower stopped paying interest. Once the full interest payments were made, the collateral was returned to them; if not, S&T pocketed the item(s) in question. Kretin, SugarDeww, Cherrycola, VGD, Tycar, and ABConnally secured bankruptcy protection through Northham Bank with the assistance of S&T. Banking Boom The fortune of S&T reached its peak in the mid-Third Era. The increased intensity of Bloodmoons and resultant unpredictable loss of life and items greatly aided the banking industry. Tox chose to change the accepted payment currencies from iron, gold, and diamonds in favor of tokens, knowing that additional deaths suffered from the parkours would only help the bankruptcy and real estate business as people continued to accrue claimblock debts. Fate By 3E:117, the active population of the Northlands was in decline and more of Tox's time was being taken by obligations to the Justice League, Project 11, and the Northham Preservation Society. As his customer base dried up, he suspended banking operations and shut the doors to S&T Credit. They would never open again. Certain changes to Dragonhollow policy in the Fourth Era made much of S&T's later business model obsolete and untenable. Residents of the Summerlands were able to accrue claimblocks quicker and survive easier than at any other point in history, meaning that it was harder to fall into debt and need to file for bankruptcy. In addition, the limit on the number of active claim deeds held by a single individual made it difficult for an entity like S&T to remain in the real estate holding business. There were more sources of tokens, meaning newcomers had a straighter path towards purchasing special items that would make their lives less stressful. Finally, spawners were no longer harvestable. Category:Banks Category:Businesses